My Staycation

Since my cat Niko needs me to give him meds every day, anything but essential travel is out of the question. Over the 4 day break I gave myself over the Christmas holiday here at home, I spent Christmas Day with my parents in the suburbs and the following day managed to get my car inspected AND visit the DMV to purchase a parking sticker in a record 20 minutes. I also organized a few computer files and found this video clip, taken 5 years ago by a Dutch student working at the same field site where I did my post-doc. I don't think I could ever get tired of watching this video:

In addition to getting some work done while watching several Star Trek episodes (my keepers gave me the entire digitally remastered original Star Trek TV series for the holidays), I also played some video games on my new PC laptop. I still prefer my mac for all work and blogging and most of the stats programs I use are only available through the Windows XP I run via Parallels on my mac, but I did finally replace my PC laptop when it died (as all PC laptops do, typically 5 years earlier than any mac laptop I have owned - only recently did I have to recycle a mac laptop through which I was hit by lightening in 2009!).

So during my Staycation the one thing I did with no clear purpose aside from pure escapism was a little geeky gaming. I started playing The Witcher 2, which has amazing amazing graphics:

During my Staycation I also created a new character in the World of Warcraft (my only female character), a Draenei monk appropriately named Nerdycatlady:

             

Addicted to Broadchurch

I have found myself completely addicted to the British crime series "Broadchurch" after bumping into it on Netflix last night. Binge watching it ever since and already well into the second season. A fair warning: if you start watching it, you will not be able to stop! Absolutely fantastic.

Liana Swingers!

Blast from the past - While going through some old wild orangutan video footage from my years spent in the forests of Indonesian Borneo, I came across this film that my assistants wanted us to make on our last day together at my field site, nearly a decade ago:

Orangutan Enrichment

The enrichment we give our apes at the Zoo comes in all different forms. While much of what we give them is designed to increase foraging time, encourage exercise and allow for choice in travel/sleeping destination, some of the enrichment is just plain fun. Here are some examples of some of the enrichment offered to our orangutans: 

Bonnie painting (all of the orangutans and gorillas regularly paint)

Bonnie playing the tambourine

Lucy playing the harmonica 

Kiko on the O-line (connects the Ape House & Think Tank)

Bonnie with a fort made out of various enrichment items

Geeky Gaming to the Rescue!

There have been 3 times in my life when I have turned to something potentially addictive, but therapeutic in reasonable doses to fill the void and escape occasionally from the real world - geeky gaming!

Though I have recently indulged in several different games, my favorite remain Second Life, which really isn't a "game" so much as a virtual world inhabited by people from around the world, and, as much as I hate to admit it, World of Warcraft--the graphics just can't be beat and they clearly know how to appeal to 12 year old boys, men with addictive personalities, and apparently yours truly.

My very first Second Life avatar, Carlyn Bingyi, has been around since a friend first told me about Second Life and I signed up for a free account while living in Switzerland back in 2007. Funny - that was the same year I joined Facebook back when I thoroughly enjoyed it, when it still felt safe, and before the platform interfered in my relationships in a way that was so personally devastating, I permanently deleted my account 2 years ago. But over the years, though I have spent months away from it, I always find my way back into Second Life, nearly a decade later. At any rate, Carlyn is the digital likeness of me and I only explore areas of Second Life that would interest me in Real Life.

Carlyn Bingyi, discovering a re-creation of NZP's O-line at the Oasis Zoo

Actual O-line at NZP

Carlyn Bingyi in StoryBrooke Gardens

After Carlyn Bingyi, I created an ancient dragon avatar and fairy man while living in Indonesia--for long periods of time during my post-doc I found myself stuck in a little village with little to do when not working on papers, but with an occasionally working wireless connection. As these avatars I got to know several people anonymously, mostly living in SE Asia, Australia and New Zealand, since we were awake at the same time.

Since returning to the states, while living in the Philadelphia area I created my forth avatar - a human male named Nathaniel Beringei (yep, his last name is the genus name of mountain gorillas...). Nathaniel is a bit like my male alter ego (note the tree house in the background).

I created my fifth and final Second Life avatar most recently here in DC, though I still most often navigate the virtual world as either Carlyn or Nathaniel. This avatar is much more social with other avatars when she comes across them than I would likely do with most humans in Real Life. She looks nothing like me so I feel much more comfortable having her get involved in strange conversations...though sometimes that gets her into trouble and she has to teleport quickly to another destination!

And then there is World of Warcraft...Still trying to figure out which character to level up when I upgrade. For now I am playing 3 different characters, spanning my three favorite races (night elf, orc and troll), two favorite classes (hunter and druid), and both factions (my favorite part of Azeroth is inhabited by the night elves of the Alliance, but my favorite faction is...THE HORDE!).

Merydydd, a night elf hunter for the Alliance in Argent Dawn

Merrydeath, an orc hunter for the Horde in Drak'Tharon

Drpongo, a troll druid for the Horde in Drak'Tharon 

**update: Merrydeath hasn't changed much recently, but Merydydd and Drpongo have both changed quite a bit since moving up through the levels with a little help from expansion boots (so hard to explain to someone who hasn't found themselves drawn into online fantasy gaming); I also created my first female alt, a Draenei monk named Nerdycatlady, who has moved up to level 21 by questing. So far I have managed to enjoy the World of Warcraft largely on my own, though Nerdycatlady has joined what seems so far to be a very casual guild in which all members seem to benefit, but there aren't any of the unrealistic requirements that I used to think all guilds had, which wouldn't be at all conducive to my extremely casual gaming and workaholic life.

Mini Lego Heist

A few years ago one of the keepers at my former institution gave me a mini lego zookeeper that I kept on the dashboard of my car. When the lego keeper's banana went missing during my last car inspection I figured that it had fallen somewhere in the car never to be seen again. But then just yesterday the lego chimpanzee went missing just after servicing my car. I have ordered a replacement from Amazon, but this leads me to wonder what it is about mini legos that seems to attracts car service men!

Gnomes at Home

It turns out that once you bring home one gnome, it's really hard not to pick up others wherever you go…here are the gnomes that currently reside in my home:

And no, I haven't gone quite over the Gnome Deep End…yes, as it turns out there is a Gnome Deep End, as evidenced by this photo from the garden of a guy in the UK:

Follow Yoda, I Must

Well, thanks to a meeting with Yoda in my dream last night, the hiatus from blogging that I thought I was about to take was very short lived. I often dream of being back in the Indonesian swamp where I lived for several years, but last night Yoda appeared and talked with me in the swamp.

Yoda said the following, and who am I to argue with Yoda?!:
"Lost you are. Blogging, do you must. Life, an illusion it is. In time, understand you will."

So I will continue blogging as things come up. My life may not be interesting to anyone else, but according to Yoda it is all an illusion anyway. Maybe in time all will become clear. Until then, I will blog about it and see what comes next.

Taking a Break

* TAKING A BREAK from blogging*

When I made the difficult but necessary decision to close my Facebook account 2 years ago, I had to adjust from the illusion that I had hundreds of friends to accepting the reality that only a handful seemed to notice my absence on social media or care enough to get in touch with me in other ways. Sadly, the experience has changed the way I view human relationships, though I think it has made me more of a realist and appreciate the unconditional loyalty of my feline companions even more. If they could speak, my cats would never promise to be loyal, ask for my trust, and walk out of my life as people have the tendency to do. They would probably just say "please snuggle with me and feed me at 3am" and then continue to be the best friends a human primate could have.

In order to keep some sort of a digital record of my life I started this blog, linking it to a field blog I wrote previously to preserve a few memories from nearly a decade of my years of living in the forest. But I don't think many people who actually know me are reading this and I find myself too often living in the past, so feeling digitally connected to people I still care about but realize I haven't heard from in years when blogging only creates an addictive false sense of community that I don't actually have anymore or may never have had in the first place.

My plan is to take a break from blogging, see how it feels and if anyone cares. I'm sure the cats will enjoy the extra snuggles. Logging off.

Peace,
Dr. Pongo

Missing Snail Mail

After returning from a week-long conference I decided to take off Friday and Monday before returning to work. It took me all day Friday to get the cats settled back home after a week with my parents, clean the apartment, do laundry, clean the apartment, etc. Yesterday I worked from home all day and started to catch up on all of the back-logged emails I missed after a week of spotty wireless and no time to check email. Today I literally spent the ENTIRE DAY on email. I am at the point where at times I have practically given up on personal email in order to keep up with work email, though I still have two personal accounts, only one of which I end up checking more than once a month. I remember once also having an inbox of messages to check when I was still on social media nearly two years ago.

Sadly, I only vaguely remember when I still enjoyed reading through emails, before keeping up with them became such a daunting task. I do still remember the excitement of reading a new email back when emails took days to transmit from one part of the country to another shortly after email was invented. But I do still remember as if it was just yesterday how it felt to routinely receive snail mail letters from friends across the country or from other countries. Email and other methods of digital communication is just not the same. At least when I lived in the forest a few friends regularly wrote to me the only way they could - via good old fashioned snail mail letters. This was my only communication with the outside world at times for many months. Now I feel old, but sometimes the ways of the past were simply better (in my humble opinion), of course only in hindsight.

Bridge of Spies

For some reason perhaps having to do with being from DC, I have always enjoyed movies and TV series about espionage. Earlier today I started watching "Covert Affairs" on Netflix and loved "Scarecrow & Mrs. King" growing up and "Alias"while working in Indonesia.

Today my mother and I went to Chinatown to see Tom Hank's new movie "Bridge of Spies" - a true story and excellent movie set during the Cold War. Of course on the way back up to my apartment to grab some things before driving my mother home, she told a complete stranger in the elevator that we just saw a wonderful movie and he responded back in a thick Russian accent...

Of course I can't think of a movie that Tom Hanks has been in that I haven't thoroughly enjoyed. Among my favorites: "Philadelphia", "Castaway", and "Captain Phillips".

This made me start thinking about other actors who I would see in any movie they are in regardless of the movie. My top 3 have always been Robert Redford (favorite movies: "Three Days of the Condor" and "Sneakers"), Jodie Foster (favorite movies: "The Silence of the Lambs" and "Little Man Tate") and Meryl Streep (favorite movies: "Out of Africa", "The Hours" and "The Devil Wears Prada").

Orangutans in Kansas

The Orangutan SSP meeting was in Wichita, Kansas this year, hosted by the Sedgwick County Zoo. Since I participated remotely in the planning meetings last year and didn't attend the Husbandry Workshop, it was nice to see several familiar faces this year. But most familiar was our keynote speaker Lone, who I hadn't seen since I visited her at her rehab site in 2008 after having rescued one of our wild orangutans who had lost her mother to a clouded leopard. Since I saw her last, Lone was knighted in Denmark for her work in Indonesia and for good reason. Such a joy to catch up!

It was also great to see other friends who I only see each year at the SSP meetings.

This was welded by a friend and thanks to our silent auction. It hangs on a wall in my apartment next to a giant cardboard orangutan I won at the auction 4 years ago. 

Good News / Bad News

GOOD NEWS:  Season 4 of American Horror Story is available on Netflix and I have been binge watching it while typing in data, unable to turn away thanks to some great acting (Jessica Lange and Kathy Bates!).

BAD NEWS: There is a clown in every episode. An EVIL clown (I have a true, visceral dislike verging on fear of clowns. Especially evil ones. Now I have a new issue: clowns carrying bowling pins).

Treehouse Dreams

When I was growing up I nearly had a treehouse in my backyard but before my father and I had a chance to work on building it a tree fell right through the place we had intended to build the treehouse. Ever since I have been obsessed with treehouses. I have several of Pete Nelson's treehouse books and I watch Treehouse Masters enviously. Having lived for years in a forest it seems only natural that I should one day live in a tree...

Someday, this is the crew I need to build my dream home in the trees!

And then one day I realized that even though I live in DC just next to a National Park forest but in an apartment, it might actually one day be possible to purchase some forest property in the Maryland or Virginia suburbs and commission the building of a treehouse. Living in DC, the trick will be finding affordable land close enough to the city, since the last thing I need is to be living next door to work in order to avoid a commute just to have a ridiculously long drive to my treehouse getaway, especially since I would love to be able to bring the cats sometimes or for long weekends. As a kid living in the Northern Virginia DC suburbs, I often drove 10-15 minutes down the road to hike the VA side of nearby Great Falls National Park, just by the CIA in Langley. If only I could find a small affordable plot of land with perfect treehouse trees neighboring Great Falls, on either side of the Potomac, I would be set to save up and eventually live my weird little dream of living at least part-time in a treehouse!

Redford Walks into the Woods

I decided that although the majority of the favorable reviews for this movie were from people over the age of 65, I had to go see Robert Redford's new movie "A Walk in the Woods", bringing to life a book by the same title written by travel author Bill Bryson based on his adventures on the Appalachian Trail. After all, there are two actors I would see in any movie - Robert Redford and Jodie Foster. So glad I saw this one - a very enjoyable movie that I certainly recommend, at least to anyone over the age of 35.

Another Year Older, Though Not Necessarily Any Wiser

I turned another year older today. Unfortunately I had a very busy day at work - so much so that I didn't realize it was after dark until the tiger that likes to visit me when I am in my office once again visited my office window, swimming up and bumping into to it from within the moat. I actually had plans to take a short walk in Rock Creek Park and/or go to Chinatown to see the new Robert Redford movie about Bill Bryson, both thwarted by my after-hours attempts to get work done.

because this first experience with the tiger office visit caught on 

camera was too great not to include in a second blog post...

My keepers at work brought me donut holes and gave me this painting made by one of our orangutans, which I happily added to my ever-growing collection of animal-made artwork:

Thankfully I was off the past 4 days and while I spend most of it coding gorilla videos for an upcoming study, I did return to the MD Renaissance Festival again this year with my mother.

 love this wooded location for a Ren Fare

a unique shop that sells vultures, rats, bats & a few other unusual creatures 

all made out of shells and other recycled natural materials

As always, my favorite thing about the festival was the shopping. I didn't buy as much this year, but I did come away with a few odds and ends, including this little fairy guy crouching on the log between the gnomes in what has become my gnome garden (I seem to find them everywhere--the one behind the plant is from England, the one on the left is Scandinavian and the one on the right I picked up at the National Cathedral) that I found at one of my favorite shops, Feywood. 

My mother framed a hand-written thank you note that Jane Goodall wrote me after I gave her a tour of the Ape House last Spring, since it seemed that this was something that should be preserved:

So the lesson I learned is that if I don't take off work on my birthday as I did last year to do a little self-contemplation in the forest and get my free birthday frappacino at Starbucks, I ought to at least make a greater effort to leave work before dark (living next door one often forgets to pay attention to the time when they often only see the inside of their office for any length of time after work hours), since not doing so is a recipe for a very sad birthday, made even more sad by the lack of forest time or a movie about forest time! At least this year I had mentally prepared myself for the fact this year that only two of the hundreds of people who I was connected to on Facebook (which I haven't been for nearly 2 years now) reached out to me on my birthday compared to the vast majority of whom wrote to me when I was on social media. Oh how different life was about a decade ago...

This beautifully summarizes how it feels sometimes to be someone who for a very good reason can not be on social media and who doesn't necessarily miss the medium of social media communication per se compared to phone calls and snail mails, but very much misses many of the people who remain on it (I am in no way judging those who are on social media, only what the culture of social media seems to have created, which you can really only fully appreciate and experience if you once had an active social media account and then had to suddenly and permanently terminate it):